Posted on 02/16/2004 10:17:33 PM PST by kattracks
You may have noticed that many young women wear less, and more sexually provocative, clothing in public than they did a generation, or even 10 years, ago.
It is easier to notice, however, than to explain.
But explaining it is crucial to understanding what has happened to men and women in the last 40 years and where male-female relations are headed. Women exposing their bodies in public is a big deal. Playing with the sex drive, the most powerful force in nature, is far more dangerous than playing with fire. Even if one welcomes this development -- and for the record, as a male I am turned on, while as a man I am turned off -- it begs for explanation.
I will offer at least five reasons that may be less obvious but more important than the valid ones usually given -- peer pressure, women buy what stores sell and the sexual revolution.
The first is "equality."
By equality, I do not mean the belief that men and women are equal human beings, a belief that all decent people hold. Rather, I mean the feminist and politically correct definition of equality: sameness. Men and women have come to be regarded as the same, not simply as equals.
Thanks to feminist doctrines that pervade education from kindergarten through graduate school, men and women increasingly believe that the sexes are largely identical. Therefore, the arenas wherein women can feel and demonstrate their feminine distinctiveness have narrowed appreciably.
By showing more of their bodies, women can announce that they are women. There are other ways young women can publicly demonstrate their distinct female identity -- for example, by wearing feminine clothing and other feminine behavior, being a wife, being pregnant and being a mother.
But those ways are increasingly ignored, deferred and discredited. Among egalitarians, being a wife is no different a role than that of husband, and motherhood is no longer regarded as distinctively female. Husbands and fathers are supposed to play identical roles, and because of the movement for gay equality, mothers have been declared unnecessary -- two fathers, most well educated people now contend, are every bit as good for a child as a mother and a father.
So, for the young woman for whom marriage, pregnancy and motherhood are remote or even undesirable given the anti-traditional education she has received, her primary vehicle of proclaiming she is a woman is literally to expose the fact.
A second, related, reason is the death of femininity.
In the past, expressing one's femaleness was done through expressing femininity. In addition to the female roles of wife and mother, there were numerous ways of doing so. One was, of course, dress. But in the name of equality and comfort, distinctive female dress -- such as dresses and skirts -- has been largely abandoned. A young woman who wore a dress or even a skirt and blouse to a college, let alone high school, class would probably be considered stranger by her peers than one who wore a see-through top.
Today, instead of women wearing feminine clothing, they either wear essentially male clothing (such as pants and pants suits) or flesh-baring sexually provocative clothing. Feminine attire -- i.e., clothing that is very female but not very revealing -- is rare.
Femininity was also expressed by sexual reticence. Again, such a notion is laughable in much of contemporary society. The idea that a man made great efforts to be allowed sexual contact with a woman rendered women feminine in men's eyes. They are different from us -- they are feminine. Women who act as sexually available as a man -- through their behavior or their dress -- are not perceived as feminine, since they are perceived as being male-like.
Likewise, the myriad ways in which men treated women as women -- such as opening doors for them -- all declared that women were feminine, i.e., different from masculine. That is why many feminists opposed men opening doors for women -- it reinforced notions of femininity, a value that feminism has sought to extinguish.
So, femininity is largely a dead concept. Ask most young women -- or men -- what it means, and you will get either a blank stare or a hostile reaction.
Thus, many women are now saying: "I am a woman. And I will declare it in one of the only ways left to me -- I will show you my female body."
©2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
father
Textiles are more expensive, and they didn't want to support sweatshops.
Global warming.
Some people wash it, some people air it.
Who could resist hundred and sixty five pounds of sexy female plumbers butt?
They are just trying to smoke out the Taliban. (Look for the guy who picks up the rock).
All that fabric irritates the belly-button piercings.
If ya got it flaunt it!
Same sized clothes, bigger girls.
The better to show off the tatoos....
and last, but not least, It is Bush's fault
Who could resist hundred and sixty five pounds of sexy female plumbers butt?
*** Excuse me but I resemble that remark :D
Go and look around any national chain department store and you will see why. There is almost nothing non-trashy and feminine for young women to wear. There was more femininity in a parochial school uniform than what you find on the racks.
Well, one guy here who looks for the eyes. It tis the eyes that turn me to mush, despite the attire.
I've learned because I won't dress in a provactive manner that I'll have to make sure I have other qualities/things that a man wants. Men are very visual and as much as we women hate that, it's a proven fact :-)
Reminds me of her grandma...:^)
That's so nice... it's also the reason why liberals want to infest schools at a younger and younger age. Innocence attracts a lot of sleaze.
Do you know who Dennis Praeger is?
Yeah, that explains about how they look.
The guys of that age wear their pants so loose, you can give them a reverse wedgie, and pull their pants to the ground.
There is a lot of prairie out here, plenty of room to stake out sleazebags for hungry coyotes.....
North Dakota? Hey that's so nice land. Isn't that the part of the US that they call 'God's Country'? Anyway, I worry about little girls and perverts (male and female). A strong MALE rolemodel is important for a little girl so she knows what a real man is as opposed to the future BJ Clintons of the world.
I like it, despite the winters, Western North Dakota has been a good place to grow up, and (so far) grow older.
One of the advantages of small town living is that everyone looks out for everyone else's kids, and you know who does not belong in the neighborhood..
It is amazing how simple life becomes when you need only ask yourself how your parents/grandparents would react. She lives with us,(her grandparents), and has since infancy, no problem with the male role model, and her grandma is a strong woman as well (has to be to put up with me). She is a neat kid, walked before she crawled (watch out!), at nine months, and has been on the go ever since. I could write about her all night, but I'll refrain. Typical grandpa, I guess.
Bet you got a wallet FULL of pictures :-)
Oddly, no, between oil rigs and motorcycles, (and little girls with water hoses), pictures don't last long. My computer is bulging at the seams, though, and her image is on the desktop of the one I work with every day on the rigs. We have a total of 12 grandkids, just one picture of each in my wallet for a day would be a guaranteed visit to the chiropractor...and you can't leave any of them out.
TWELVE???? Children are a blessing indeed!
All else aside, they, their ideas and character, are what we bequeath the world. None of the rest really matters, it is just stuff. They are a blessing indeed.
I have seen home-schooled kids and kids the cool kids think are dorks or unattractive keep that sort of mindset all the way into adulthood. It's a beautiful thing to see someone who doesn't feel the need the serve their sexuality up on a platter for every person they meet.
This applies to boys and men who don't feel the need to constantly declare their sexual prowess to the world.
That might work a wee bit better without the tattoos, belly button rings, and the rest of the 'female body decor' that contributes to the display.
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